Mobile menu toggle

News - page 1327

Exact location of Apple’s new Marlborough, Mass store revealed

By •

Apple logo on store
Apple has a backup plan.
Photo: Cult of Mac

Apple has multiple new stores planned to open over the second half of 2014 and first quarter of 2015. Among these is one planned for Marlborough, Mass, as revealed through job postings listed by Apple over the past 10 days.

Up until now, however, the store’s future location hasn’t been known. Fortunately a tipster has pointed out the exact location where the retail outlet — Apple’s 11th in the state — will be set to open.

Buffer social network manager adds feeds and multiple accounts sharing

By •

screen568x568(8)

If you’re anything like me it can be difficult to stay on top of all of your different social media accounts, which is why Buffer is so useful as a tool — since it allows you to share to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and App.net all from inside one place. In addition it lets you control the scheduling of these posts, while getting analytics for each social update you share, whether this means clicks, retweets, likes, shares, mentions, and so on.

Buffer received its last refresh just one month ago — adding support for two-factor authentication and improved accessibility — but its latest update is well worth a look, adding “feeds” and “groups” features, along with improved navigation.

Read all about it: Apple settles eBook pricing suit

By •

apple_edu_ibooks_video_heading

Apple has settled out of court in the latest eBooks price fixing suit brought against the company. It was set to go before a jury next month, with potential damages being as much as $840 million.

The terms of the settlement haven’t yet been revealed, and the opposing side now has one month to request formal acceptable of their agreement by the court.

Your keyboard is about to get 250 new emoji

By •

emojiiOS8

Emojing has already replaced texting as the go-to zero-effort communication tool of youngsters everywhere, and all those emoji version of popular songs and TV shows are about a lot more elaborate thanks to huge unicode update.

250 new emoji have been added to unicode standard 7.0 that is used to standardize the presentation of text across different platforms like iOS, Android, and Windows, and while it’s still up to software makers to actually implement the new standards, you can expect them to land on iOS pretty soon.

Jony Ive on Apple’s design process and working with new product ‘materials’

By •

Jony Ive

Apple’s approach to design is just as healthy as it was under Steve Jobs, according to Jony Ive. Looking ahead, Apple is building upcoming products with “materials we haven’t worked in before.” Let your imagination run wild.

The New York Times has published a follow-up Q&A with Jony Ive following its big weekend profile of Tim Cook.

Ive was quoted in the Cook story, but in this second installment we get more insight into how he sees the current state of Apple. Points of discussion include how Ive approaches product design, working with Cook, the values Steve Jobs instilled in the company, and how Ive doesn’t think “anything’s changed” since Cook became CEO.

Deceptihogs and Autobirds mash it up in upcoming Angry Birds Transformers

By •

Birds disguised as robots in disguise.
Birds disguised as robots in disguise.

If you haven’t gotten enough of disgruntled avians from Rovio’s hit series Angry Birds, what with last week’s Angry Birds Epic or the well-received Angry Birds Star Wars mobile games, then this news is for you.

Rovio has teamed up with Hasbro to mashup its own quirky mobile gaming franchise with yet another pop-culture phenomenon, the Transformers. And not the Michael Bay hyper-CGI movies, either. This looks to be a full-on 1980s cartoon take on the “robots in disguise” theme, complete with birds disguised as robots that can turn into cars and airplanes.

Sigh.

Samsung wants to buy the company that powers Siri

By •

Photo: Apple
Photo: Apple

Apple’s Siri feature has been a crown jewel of iOS ever since it launched in 2011, but the company and the tech behind it might fall into the hands of Apple’s number one enemy – Samsung.

Nuance Communications is in discussions with a number of potential suitors looking to buy the company, and Samsung Electronics is at the top of the list, according to Wall Street Journal report that also names a few private-equity firms among the list of possible buyers, but Apple is nowhere to be found.

Not using Paper yet? Facebook’s new update will change your mind

By •

10333120_306875736154543_1400468750_n

Most people use Facebook’s official iOS app to obsessively check their news feeds. But there’s another option that has a much better design and no ads. It’s called Paper, and it has been available for the iPhone since January.

Made by a special group within Facebook called Creative Labs, Paper is an experiment in how to use Facebook within a more media-rich, gesture-driven, elegant interface. If you haven’t heard of it yet, then you definitely need to check it out after the huge update it received today in the App Store.

Facebook for iPad wants to be your hub for game discovery

By •

facebookiPad

Facebook is trying to transform its News Feed into more than just a hotbed of baby pictures and Buzzfeed quizes and its first move is a new side panel to help users discover more timely content.

To make the app more relevant for the way people use tablets, Facebook for iPad is adding a new channel on the right-hand side of your news feed featuring trending topics, videos and tons of game suggestions to try to get users to read more news, watch more videos and play games in the app. And you can bet there will be plenty of ads to compensate.

Beats Music gets exclusive access to Jay Z’s Jungle

By •

BqNkqC5CQAABC6z

Beats already released one epic World Cup commercial this month, but last night Dre’s music behemoth tossed out another fantastic ad wrapped in an exclusive Jay Z track you’ll only find on Beats Music.

For the next week a new remix of “Jungle” featuring Jay Z alongside fellow Brooklyn-based friends, X Ambassadors & Jamie N Commons will be exclusively available on Beats Music streaming service.

Checkout the full Beats ad with J Hova’s ungodly soccer fueled verse:

iPhone 6 to feature Quad HD resolution?

By •

Utterly Phab-ulous

Could the iPhone 6 boast a Quad HD display, packing a 2560 x 1440 resolution in line with the 5.5-inch LG G3?

That’s the word on the street according to a source citing “Apple employees” from Hong Kong, although it is not clear which iPhone 6 model is being referred to. If this is the case, it would give the give the iPhone 6 by far the most stunningly beautiful screen of any Apple smartphone ever.

WebMD update lets you stay on top of your fitness goals

By •

screen568x568(7)

With the announcement of its Health app (and associated API) for iOS 8, Apple is making no secret of its plans to enter the health and fitness-tracking market. Capitalizing on this hype, WebMD has just updated its flagship iOS app to target health and fitness enthusiasts in a new program called Healthy Target.

A brand new section of the popular healthcare app, Healthy Target helps you to keep in top form, and on top of your various health-related goals, by setting specific targets and then tracking your progress as you work toward them. To do this, the app lets users connect their favorite activity tracker, wireless scale, or glucometer to automatically track sleep, weight, and blood sugar levels.

Apple now accepting Bitcoin wallet apps again

By •

largest-bitcoin-exchange-suspends-withdrawals.si

Having recently clarified its position on virtual currencies in the App Store (hint: Apple doesn’t hate them as much as you thought it did!), we’re starting to see certain iOS apps which deal in Bitcoin being approved for availability in the App Store again.

One of the first is CoinPocket, an app which allows users to send and receive Bitcoin, as well as collect private keys into a single spot and encrypt them. It’s very similar to Blockchain and Coinbase: two Bitcoin wallet apps which were previously given the boot by Apple.

New York Times profile of Tim Cook hints at iWatch plans

By •

Apple sure seems a friendlier place these days. But at what cost?
"Aw shucks, me?"

The New York Times featured a fascinating profile of Tim Cook on Sunday, describing his leadership style at Apple — including his role in product development, his efforts to grow the Apple brand, and his “quiet” approach to design. The profile also features a couple of neat insights that may have bearing on Apple’s eagerly-awaited iWatch development.

Hands on: See how iOS 8 transforms Mail into a speedy messaging tool

By •

post-283625-image-bdfe8220b70ddf131b04502b7bc8a584-jpg

With so many emails to send in a day, having an application that meets all your requirements is critical. Though Apple’s native email client might not always have been the fastest means of delivering messages, iOS 8 aims to fix that. In today’s hands-on video, we’ll give you a look at the new and improved Mail application, which comes equipped with quick tricks to speed up common activities.

For instance, you can swipe across emails in the enhanced Mail app to quickly access functions or go back and forth between your inbox and drafts. See how it all works in the video above.

Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest videos.

Crystal Baller: Futuristic Smart Covers and other wild Apple rumors

By •

apple-crystal-ball1

Stare into our ball to see past the rumors and into the future...

We get slammed 24/7 with new Apple rumors. Some are accurate, most are not. To give you a clue about what’s really coming out of Cupertino in the future, we’re busting out our rumor debunker each week to blow up the nonsense.

After WWDC ground the rumor mill to a near halt last week, the Apple gossip machine is back to full force spitting out whispers of new iMacs, crazy tales of futuristic Smart Covers and of course, tons of new iPhone 6 rumors.

Once again we're taking the black cloth off our crystal ball and shining it up to see if we can spot what Tim Cook has in store for the future of Apple. Come see which rumors are guaranteed to materialize and which are about to disappear like a ghost.


iCaramba! New pictures showing the 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 surface

By •

Photo: Sonny Dickson/Twitter
Photo: Sonny Dickson/Twitter

We’ve heard plenty of reports about Apple’s 5.5-inch “phablet” iPhone 6, but most of the leaked pictures so far have claimed to depict its smaller sibling, the 4.7-inch iPhone 6, instead.

That’s changed with some new model photos showing mockups of both sizes of the forthcoming iPhone 6, including both the back and front of the two next generation iPhone models, sitting side by side.

The future of the iPhone 5c, Apple pays Lebron and the rest of this week’s hottest news

By •

post-283620-image-777fcb537b427a6c57cfd66a1ae4e01b-jpg

Back in 2008, basketball star LeBron James received a small stake in Beats Electronics in exchange for promoting the company’s headphones. Now that Apple has bought Beats, guess how much James is set to make? You really don’t want to know, but watch our news wrap anyway. The rest of it, including updates on split-screen iPad multitasking and the future of the iPhone 5c. will cheer you up.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest how-tos, tips and other videos.

Apple’s iPhablet might cost you an extra $100

By •

iphone65incher

Apple is definitely making a big screen iPhone that will launch this fall, the only question is how much extra is it going to cost you?

Fanboys are notoriously willing to pay an extra Apple Tax for Macs, but some analysts are worried a bigger iPhone with bigger price tag will chase some away. Those fears will probably prove to be unrealized though according to a survey by Raymond James that claims most of Apple’s potential iPhablet customers are totally cool shelling out $100 more.

Best places to score deals on the iPhone, iPad or MacBook Air

By •

ipadiphonemacbook

Photo: Apple

Scoring a sweet deal on an iPhone directly from Apple is nearly impossible. Luck for us, a bunch of Cupertino’s retail partners aren’t afraid to cut some dinero off its price-tag to try to get you in the store. But which store is best for Apple deals?

To locate the top places to get deals on Apple products, DealNews tracked several years worth of deals for the iPhone, iPad, and 11-inch MacBook Air and discovered that certain retailers offer consistently better deals on one specific product. Many of the big name retailers are great for iPhones deals, but you might be the surprised where to look for the best iPad and MacBook Air bargains.

Here are the best places to score a deal for each Apple product:

Siri’s favorite table-reservation system gets bought for $2.6 billion

By •

Scott Forstall introduces Siri's newfound ability to book tables, back in 2012
Scott Forstall introduces Siri's ability to book tables at WWDC 2012.

Hotel booking giant Priceline.com will acquire OpenTable, the online reservation service for restaurants that provides Siri’s table-booking functionality.

Priceline is set to pay a massive $2.6 billion as part of the all-cash deal, which breaks down as $103 per share — or 46 percent above the publicly traded OpenTable’s closing price Thursday.

iOS 8 makes time-lapse video easy, plus our iPads need some Nintendo on The CultCast

By •

cultcast-iPad-Mini-new-logo.jpg

OMG y’all, it’s CultCast time. This week we bring to thee some more cool iOS 8 features you didn’t hear about at WWDC, plus we’ll tell you all about the new time-lapse video feature we’ve been playing with. Then, with rumors swirling that fall will bring us an iWatch, we have to wonder what features and price point would make us want one adorning our wrists. All that plus Apple’s marketing arm gets major renovations, and in honor of this week’s E3, we say why Nintendo absolutely needs to bring Mario to iOS to survive!

Cheerfully guffaw your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the uproarious good time commence.

Our thanks to Slingbox for supporting this episode! Slingbox, the best way to watch your TV anywhere, and brings your cable set-top box, satellite receiver or DVR, right to your favorite mobile device, wherever you are in the world. With no monthly fees. Check it out at Slingbox.com/cult, and get $50 off plus free shipping on a new Slingbox.